An Extraordinary Interview

Driving home tonight, I listened to Hugh Hewitt inerviewing Mark Halperin, political director of ABC News. Since then, I’ve reviewed the entire transcript here. I would urge you to read the interview, or track down Hugh’s podcast of it when it appears at TownHall. It was one of the most remarkable interviews I’ve listened to in a long time. Remarkable, in part, because Halperin came across very well. He was promoting a book, The Way to Win: Taking the White House in 2008. But the conversation ranged far beyond the usual book-plugging discourse, and Halperin was much more than a reluctant foil for Hugh’s questions.
In fact, on one basic issue that Hugh and Halperin batted back and forth, I’m on Halperin’s side: Hugh, as I’ve said before, is of the view that there is no such thing as unbiased reporting, and so we should all declare our biases and have at it. Halperin defended the more traditional view, with which I agree, that unbiased news coverage (as opposed to commentary or opinion journalism) is an honorable if never fully achievable goal.
Beyond that, though, one stiking feature of the interview was Halperin’s ready admission of the liberal bias that pervades old media. Here are a few exchanges; there were more to the same effect: